Call to God full Throated

One of my pet peeves (one of five or six dozen) has to do with the folks at the 'Y' after the New Year.  There is always this increase of men and women who are going to get healthy and lose weight, as part of a New Years resolution.  These are truly novices who are often in the way more often than not.  About his time of year they begin to dwindle, and by early March they are probably looking at other resolutions.

In regards to our Faith I think that we can very much be this way.  We give up too quickly, or we do our spiritual practices for the wrong reasons.  You know that you are going to stumble and falter when you tell others, "On Easter Sunday I am eating all the chocolate I want,"  or "I look forward to that first beer after Lent."  In regards to our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, it might be good to contempate th real reason behind these act.  And even More so, are we drawing closer to conversion and discipleship.

Isaiah brings the peoples complaint to God (as do the Parisees to Jesus) as to why God is not drawing close to them after their time of fast.  God's response is that the real fast that is expected is the release from oppression and the beginning of reconciliation.  We can fast all we want but if that does not cause us to "hunger" for God, the fast is for naught.  In Matthew's Gospel Jesus quotes the Hebrew scriptures in stating, "It is mercy I desire and not sacrifice."  Our religious acts in and of themselves do not impress God.  But our becoming more 'Godly' draws us into the life with God. 

Even if part of our Lenten practice is to do without one pleasure or another during these forty days, the scriptures remind us that there is a very serious call we have in living on the foundation of the Paschal Mystery.  Hopefully by paying attention to the movement of God in our life, we can come to learn the ways of charity, compassion and peace.  While some of our Lenten things might be monotonous they become those exercises so as to recognize what is good and true.

Lent cannot be so much of a spiritual treadmill as it is a journey with God, within a comminity.  May the good things God has begun in us be brought to completion.